


what I'm asking

by Amymel86



Series: Sugar and Spice Drabbles [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 16:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amymel86/pseuds/Amymel86
Summary: "I'm not here to talk about that," Theon says, setting off another, thankfully smaller coughing fit. "I'm here to talk about Sansa."Jon can feel the blood drain from his face. "Is she ill?"Theon shakes his head, lifting his eyes to Jon as he coughs into his fist. "No," he finally says, his lungs giving him a small reprieve. "The Queen is in her prime. Which is why you are needed."





	what I'm asking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riahchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riahchan/gifts).

> Ok, so my new android phone doesn't seem to like me using tags that don't appear as part of the drop down choices, so please consider these as my tags:
> 
> Theonsa (one sided)  
Sansa needs a baby  
Jonsa do love each other but it didn't happen because canon sucks  
Theon married Sansa to protect her  
His lack of boy-parts is not a well known fact  
Theon is Queen Consort  
Jon is a stubborn potato
> 
> Dedicated to Riahchan because this was actually her idea!
> 
> For the jonsadungeonsanddrabbles event on tumblr - prompt: love and duty
> 
> (Also I know I went over the word limit - so sue me! 😜)

Visitors are scarce here at The Wall. One might think that Jon Snow has merely forgotten how to receive them through pure lack of practice. The truth is, he has neither need, nor wish for the man who stands before him in his meagre Night's Watch chambers.

"You've travelled a long way-" Jon said, voice sounding as ill-worn and haggard as the man before him looks, "-Greyjoy."

"It's 'your grace' now," Theon said with twisted lips, "but you knew that."

Yes, he knew it. And the hard truth was that he'd thought the biting discomfort he felt had subsided over the past two years. But here it is, rearing it's gut-rolling head. He said nothing, only offering a hard stare. Theon had taken his people, his home, his love. Though, none of those were ever his really, were they?

As Queen Consort, Jon supposes his guest is expecting all kinds of airs and graces laid on for him. He always was an arrogant man, even in his youth, and though he's humbled greatly from that young boy he once was, he suspects it hasn't all vanished.

Jon forgets that conceited youth however, when Theon's determined expression crumbles under the weight of an almighty hacking cough that seems to shake the very core of the man. His gaunt frame is tensed under the rumbling force of this cough.

Jon may not want to face Greyjoy and be reminded of what he has lost, but he's no barbarian. He pours a horn of ale and offers it to his guest who waves it away in favour of coughing more heavily into a beautifully embroidered handkerchief.

Theon's eyes are red and dewy by the time the hacking stops and he takes a few fortifying breaths. "The Maester says I've clotted lungs," he says, taking a seat that Jon had not offered at his small side table.

"Is it serious?" He may hold more envy than love for the man but he does not wish him harm.

Theon stares at his own fingernail scraping at the grain of the wooden table. "It's not good."

His unwanted guest's mouth is a thin, grim line that Jon can read perfectly. He sighs and takes the adjacent chair, groaning a little as he sits. They're all more than a little tired of what life has given them by now, but that doesn't mean any man wishes it was cut short. "I'm sorry," he offers. It's all he has to give.

"I'm not here to talk about that," Theon says, setting off another, thankfully smaller coughing fit. "I'm here to talk about Sansa."

Jon can feel the blood drain from his face. "Is she ill?"

Theon shakes his head, lifting his eyes to Jon as he coughs into his fist. "No," he finally says, his lungs giving him a small reprieve. "The Queen is in her prime. Which is why you are needed."

Jon leans back at that, as though he can distance himself from whatever it is that Theon is here to say. He feels his mouth tug down at the corners. "I'm needed here."

"You're hiding up here more like."

Allowing the silence to speak for him, Jon returns Theon's challenging glare. Gods, what he wouldn't give for things to be different, for him to feel no shame and be able to return home.

Dark eyes fell from Jon's to focus on fingers tapping on the table once more. "Sansa-" he pauses to take a resigning breath, "Sansa wants... and needs a child."

That familiar envious anger bubbles low in his gut like a foul stew over the cook fire. "Then give her one," he says, miraculously keeping the snarl at bay. He does not want to be concerned with this. He does not want to think of this. He barely wants to acknowledge that Theon-fucking-Greyjoy is parading around at Winterfell as Sansa's husband.

"I cannot."

Two words. Jon is very torn as to whether he wishes to hear the rest.

Theon shifts in his chair, his tone changing too. "She loves you, you know... in a way that she's unable to love me."

Jon's heart stutters before resuming the steady aching beat of a broken man. "Aye. I was her brother, and you her husband. It's different."

"Except that she wishes you were in my stead."

Shaking his head of the picture Theon was painting, Jon pushes his yearnings to the far corners of his mind. His desires were not made to be granted so freely.

"The Maester says I have five to eight years, maybe more, maybe less." Jon's not sure what he is meant to do with the information apart from be sorry for it. "I love Sansa," Theon tells him, "but I cannot give her what she wants... You can."

He cannot mean it. Surely, he can't.

"Your pardon has been signed ever since you left Kings Landing," Theon continues, "though you knew that. You're just too stubborn and self-loathing to accept it." Another fit of coughing erupts, making him wheeze. The handkerchief comes away spotted with crimson. "Come home," he tells Jon through heavy breaths. "Come home and love her in ways that I can't. Be discreet about it 'till my death and then take her to wife."

A crease forms between Jon's brows. "You have this all planned out? Just like that?"

The muscle in Theon's jaw ticked a time or two. "You think this is easy? She's my wife and I cannot be a true husband to her. I married her for her protection. I've grown to love her, truly love her! You think I want to be asking you this?!"

His temper and his voice had risen, exciting his sensibilities so that a fit of coughing was more than inevitable.

With parted lips, Jon struggled for words.

"The babe will be known as mine. You'll adopt it after I'm gone."

"Sansa could name an heir."

Theon fixed him with a cold stare. "Sansa wants to be a mother. The only thing she could possibly want more is you," he spat.

Could this be real? Has Jon slipped into some sort of fever dream where everything he's ever wanted is handed to him in the most unconventional way? "I don't deserve it," he grunts. It's all he can think to say. "I don't deserve her."

"Aye, you don't. And I don't deserve to hear my wife sigh your name in her sleep, or know she opens the trunk full of your old clothes more than she ought to, or that she embroiders white direwolves with ruby red eyes on every-fucking-thing!" He flings his handkerchief down on the table between them, the design now clear; an image of Ghost, red eyes amongst the spotted blood stains. "The Gods haven't finished with my punishment," he says, a little calmer now, "they've found new, terrible ways for me to serve my penance." Theon takes a fortifying breath. "Asking the man that my wife loves to put a baby in her belly is one of them."


End file.
